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How do I hide old podcasts in iTunes 11.1 and What's Up with the New Podcast Pane?

FIrst of all, I'm having fits with this "new" way of managing podcasts.


For years, I have managed the podcasts on my iPod (and now my iPhone 5) by manually syncing the device with my subscribed podcasts in iTunes. I have iTunes set to download the most recent episode of each of my podcasts and to keep all episodes until I delete them. Some podcasts I listen to or view only my MacBook Pro and I don't sync these to my iPhone. This has worked fine for years.


I moved to Apple's dedicated Podcasting app when I purchased my iPhone 5 earlier this year, but I maintained the manual syncing as I had done, using the app only to play the podcasts, not to subscribe to or download them.


I upgraded my iPhone 5 and iPad 3 to iOS 7 on launch day and downloaded iTunes 11.1 to my MacBook Pro, running OS X 10.8.5. The iOS upgrades went flawlessly for both of my devices, but iTunes has been a problem. It was sluggish when I first opened it, with lots of spinning beach balls. When I opened it for the first time, I went to the Podcast section and to my list of podcasts. They all now had "Subscribe" buttons by each of them (I was already subscribed to the podcasts in iTunes before the update). I assumed that I had to click the buttons to activate subscriptions in iTunes, but low and behold I discovered that it subscribed my iPhone 5's podcast app to ALL of the podcasts in my list (even ones that I don't put on the iPhone). It also started DOWNLOADING all of the episodes of these podcasts to my iPhone which, had I let it continue, would have eaten all of my bandwidth on Verizon for the month (and then some), plus the iPhone would have been filled up long before it could finish downloading the episodes.


I managed to get the iPhone's Podcast app to stop downloading these episodes, then I manually deleted all of the podcasts that didn't belong on the iPhone. I then had to go through all of the podcasts in the app and click a yellow box that said they hadn't been updated and wouldn't resum updating until I clicked the box.


Then I went back to iTunes 11.1, where I discovered that ALL the podcast episodes for my subscriptions that are still available for download in their feeds were now listed (2,000+ episodes), with previously listened-to episodes now showing with a cloud download icon next to them. Even more frustrating, I can't delete these from iTunes even though I've already listened to them and, even more frustratingly, the "Subscribe" button remains by each podcast in the list.


All I want to do is remove these previously-listened to podcasts from my lists, remove the subscribe buttons (since I'm already subscribed in iTunes), and continue to manually sync my iPhone's podcasts with iTunes as before. What do I have to do to make this happen? And if these are new "features" of the new iTunes, please share with your team that, while there are many who update wirelessly over their cell carrier's bandwidth, others of us don't have the capability (or desire) to do things this way and we want to switch this off and return to the "old" way of doing things.


Any ideas on how to fix iTunes 11.1 to return to the old way of doing things would be greatly appreciated!

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2008), OS X Mountain Lion, 4 Gb of RAM

Posted on Sep 19, 2013 6:26 AM

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141 replies

Sep 19, 2013 5:17 PM in response to David Biddix

I wish we could come up with a different term for podcasts, because with each new release of iOS and iTunes, support for podcasts seems to be declining. Apple really doesn't seem to understand how users want to use podcasts, and they keep trying to "fix" a system that works very well for most of us.


Why on earth does iTunes feel the need to display a list of podcasts I have already listened to, instead of simply deleting the files per the settings I chose for the podcast?


Kim

Sep 19, 2013 9:00 PM in response to David Biddix

On eating up bandwidth with Verizon (assuming this is 3G downloading rather than Wifi): on your iPhone, go to Settings / Cellular Data: at the bottom of that screen, you'll see a list of "Use Cellular Data For: ..." (and, ouch, it seems like iOS 7 has reset EVERYTHING to work with cellular data - that's dangerous for those on limited plans!). Toggle off cellular data for things like Podcasts.


Note that the iOS Podcasts App and iTunes 11.1 seem to synchronize subscription status: if you unsubscribe on the iPhone, you also unsubscribe in iTunes, and vice versa. (In general it seems like podcast syncing between iTunes and Podcasts is much more advanced with this update, BUT that seems to be bringing a massive amount of other problems!) What I'm doing on the iPhone: I keep the Subscription On, but "Auto-Downloads" is off, and I'm trying for the moment to just download on my computer. Not yet sure how that's going to work.


List view in iTunes is now unusable and the only fix will be if Apple deigns to change it with an update. As GattMallant has said, the My Podcasts pane is moderately useful; I'm currently finding "My Stations" more useful, once you've set up the right kinds of playlists/"stations"; a playlist of all unplayed seems to be the closest I've found to regaining the functionality of the old List view. I've written more about that here.

Sep 20, 2013 6:22 PM in response to GattMallant

There are a couple of Podcasts that I subscribe that has multiple "episodes" when they "air" like "Fresh Air" which may have 2 or 3 and "Science Friday" that has as many as 8! It seems to only download the most recent one - from the list view it was much easier to select and downoad the multiple "chapters" (if that is a more accurate term?)

I guess I need to find a different program to download Podcasts!

Sep 20, 2013 6:29 PM in response to LarryG18

LarryG18: if you set the podcast subscription to "Download All", rather than "Download Most Recent", that should give you all the multiple new episodes. Yes, I know "Download All" sounds scary - as if you're going to get the whole past year of Science Friday - but so far for me it seems to usually get all the new episodes only (but sometimes only one of the new episodes: I wouldn't say it's working well).


I'm a little surprised by all these posts: I thought I was one of the few holdouts who still liked the List view! But I guess I was far from alone.

Sep 20, 2013 10:10 PM in response to David Biddix

What really cheeses me off here is that Apple isn't allowing users enough customization. With each update of iTunes (and the OS and iOS) we're forced to give up something that worked well for the way we want to use the app and make do with fewer (and lamer) options. If Apple keeps this up, they're going to start losing customers fast. I mean if this isn't fixed soon, I'm pretty sure I'm going to give up on iTunes, and then I'll probably go ahead and get a Galaxy when I need to replace my iPhone.


What I don't understand about how they won't let users delete the list of available podcasts now is why? How is this making it a better program? I can understand that not all users are capable enough to right-click on a feed and select "Show all available episodes", so I can see why they want the complete list to be the default (and, surprise, it already was). But to not give users the option to delete that list? It's inconsiderate because it makes navigating feeds with a large back catalogue really frustrating. I'm flabbergasted that no one at Apple considered all the podcast feeds that keep hundreds of episodes available when they removed this feature. It smacks of rank incompetence.


What improvement were they trying to make here anyway? There was nothing wrong to my mind about how podcasts were managed in previous versions. Whatever improvement they were trying to make here, they should have realized that many users would at least want the option to keep things the way they were.


And reverting to a previous version is no solution. I can't sync my iPhone with the new iOS without this update, and (while I do have some issues--specifically how you can't play podcasts in the Music app anymore) I do like the new iOS.

Sep 20, 2013 10:26 PM in response to David Biddix

I posted some comments a few days ago, but they don’t seem to have appeared; maybe the Apple moderator thought my remarks were too harsh, although I would say they were certainly no more (or less) scathing than what has already been written above.


I agree 110% with what’s been mentioned, I am highly disappointed with iTunes 11 and its podcast problems. I lost the majority of my saved podcasts, and I really find the inability to delete old/previous listed podcasts so annoying. The whole program is worse off, and the approach to manage and navigate podcasts - well, it’s giant step backwards IMHO.


Please, please Apple... look up and take note of what we are saying, and fix the glaring issues and problems.


PS: one saving grace in my case, I have a Time Capsule backup, so I'm in the middle of trying to retrieve my lost podcasts by way of: Music / iTunes / iTunes Music / Podcasts directory...

Sep 21, 2013 9:21 AM in response to David Biddix

I completely agree. I listen to lots of podcasts, but I skip through ones that don't interest me pretty quickly. What's missing is an easy way to manage the podcasts I've already heard. What was a pretty straightforward process now requires 2x or 3x the time.


Also -- and this probably belongs in another thread -- every time I try to use iTunes Match, it freezes iTunes. I'm a little annoyed that I'm paying extra for this service that freezes the application.

How do I hide old podcasts in iTunes 11.1 and What's Up with the New Podcast Pane?

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